Monday, June 8, 2009

Back when Darrell and I had been married a little over a year and Julia was 5 days old we moved from Joplin, Missouri to Jacksonville, Arkansas-- a town about 30 minutes outside of Little Rock. Darrell may have been a doctor but we were P-O-O-R. Darrell was doing a fellowship which paid next to nothing. The amount of child support and alimony he paid to his first wife was literally more than his monthly salary. Add the fact that our house in Joplin hadn't sold and throw in the rent payment for the cockroach pit of a house we lived in. Needless to say, money wasn't tight, it was non existent. (Thank God for credit card cash advances.) All this to say that we looked for ways to save money and one thing we found was that I could cut the boys and Darrell's hair.

I had been cutting the boys hair already. Crew cuts were totally in so I bought a set of clippers, would set a kitchen chair out in the driveway and shave their heads. Pretty easy stuff. But one day Darrell had gotten his hair cut and came home unhappy with how it turned out and asked me to "fix it." I hesitated. Shaving the boys heads was totally different than cutting someones head with scissors, but I took it slow and fixed what he didn't like. Six weeks later he asked me to cut it again, this time from the beginning. I cut it and he was very happy with the results. I then told him he owed me $20. He paid his hair stylist $20 for a bad cut, the least he could do was pay me $20 for a good one. It was a joke but he got out his wallet and handed me a $20. From that day on he paid me $20 every time I cut his hair, including his last hair cut 2 weeks before his accident. It was considered "my" money, something very coveted back in those rough early years.

Ross has short hair again so the clippers have reemerged but I hadn't cut anyone's hair with scissors in over 3 years, until Friday. Trace told Cody that I could cut hair and she asked me to cut Gauge's.

I strongly suggested that Gauge go to Sport Clips, the very same establishment I had taken Ryan to just a couple of days earlier. But Gauge is deathly afraid of hair cuts and Cody didn't want to be embarrassed by his screaming. My hair cutting scissors have long since disappeared but I found a pretty sharp pair and set to work. Cody wasn't kidding.

He spent most of our time together screaming and crying and asking "Is she done yet?"

Towards the end he settled down and decided it wasn't as horrific as he thought.{Notice Emma clinging to my leg.}

But he was especially happy when it was over. Here he is with his "rock star" look.But since the scissors had been dusted off, I decided to try them out on Emma.

The key to getting her to sit still is to give her food.

{Are you sure you know what you're doing???}

I planned to just even up the back which had never been cut and was pretty scraggly. But Julia (who was photographing the event) kept begging me to give Emma bangs. I hesitated because growing out bangs its nightmare. But keeping Emma's hair out of her eyes has become an even bigger nightmare. Everything I put in her hair to keep it out of her face is removed (and often lost) at some point in the day. So...

I decided to cut her bangs. And the result?

What happened to my baby??? I am currently growing them out. But I must admit, her hair is out of her eyes.

{Yes, my house is a TOTAL mess in the background. Just keepin' it real people. But let it be known, that my entire first floor is currently CLEAN! Hence the reason I was hardly on Facebook yesterday.)

Well, Denise....I must say A+ on Gauge's hair but I preferred Emma's without the bangs. Not that you didn't do a good job on them..nice and straight....it just doesn't look like Emma! She actually looks well um sweet and innocent now and we all know those aren't the first things we thing of when we think of sweet little Emma! LOL! Don't let the look fool YOU, Mama!

You go girl!! You are majorly talented because screaming kids getting their hair cut is a disaster. Sooooo reminds me of my son Shane - he did the same thing and was a blondie too. I had to cut his hair for years and I wasn't nearly as good as you are!